Demand states release original birth certificates to adoptees as proof of U.S. citizenship.

One class of native-born U.S. citizens has been disenfranchised of the vital statistics instruments documenting their birth - and thus proof of their citizenship. This group, those born into one family but adopted into another, has been burdened with an 'amended,' certificate which falsifies their parentage and sometimes even changes date and/or place of birth. To compound matters, all but a few states place their authentic birth certificates in sealed files and deny their true owners access to them.

The result to adoptees is a frustrating, embarrassing, and often costly struggle to obtain something as basic to U.S. citizens as a passport so they may visit other countries. Many lose their $95 application fees when they send for a passport with their birth certificates and are refused because the filing dates on their falsified documents is more than a year after their birth. But of course their filing fee is not returned and the fee must be paid again with another attempt. When they look on the official passport website, they find these suggested documents they can provide to supplement their "delayed" birth certificate:

......documentation used to create it (preferably early public records) and ......signed by the birth attendant or lists an affidavit signed by the parents

The adoptee has access to neither the original document (his original birth certificate) used to create the delayed copy nor any document "signed by the birth attendant" or "affidavit signed by the parents."

Some adoptees have been verbally admonished and even humiliated by clerks in local passport offices, as well as in state license bureaus, when they present their state-falsified "birth" certificates. At least one has been questioned by police; another questioned by Homeland Security.

Most of these disenfranchised individuals are second, third, and even fourth generation U.S. citizens. The denial of authentic vital statics documentation of birth to this class of citizens is an egregious denial of civil rights. They must be granted full, unrestricted access to copies of these government-held personal documents, just as they are provided, for a fee, to all other U.S. citizens.

Letter to

ComplaintsDepartment of Homeland Security

Demand states release original birth certificates to adoptees

One class of native-born U.S. citizens has been disenfranchised of the vital statistics instruments documenting their birth - and thus proof of their citizenship. This group, those born into one family but adopted into another, has been burdened with an 'amended,' certificate which falsifies their parentage and sometimes even changes date and/or place of birth. To compound matters, all but a few states place their authentic birth certificates in sealed files and deny their true owners access to them.

The result to adoptees is a frustrating, embarrassing, and often costly struggle to obtain something as basic to U.S. citizens as a passport so they may visit other countries. Many lose their $95 application fees when they send for a passport with their birth certificates and are refused because the filing dates on their falsified documents is more than a year after their birth. But of course their filing fee is not returned and the fee must be paid again with another attempt. When they look on the official passport website, they find these suggested documents they can provide to supplement their "delayed" birth certificate:

......documentation used to create it (preferably early public records) and......signed by the birth attendant or lists an affidavit signed by the parents

The adoptee has access to neither the original document (his original birth certificate) used to create the delayed copy nor any document "signed by the birth attendant" or "affidavit signed by the parents."

Some adoptees have been verbally admonished and even humiliated by clerks in local passport offices, as well as in state license bureaus, when they present their state-falsified "birth" certificates. At least one has been questioned by police; another questioned by Homeland Security.

Most of these disenfranchised individuals are second, third, and even fourth generation U.S. citizens. The denial of authentic vital statics documentation of birth to this class of citizens is an egregious denial of civil rights. They must be granted full, unrestricted access to copies of these government-held personal document, just as they are provided, for a fee, to all other U.S. citizens.